Buzzfeed and Bobby Jindal Try to Out-Whore One Another

The media is often granted access to important people. What responsibility—if any—do news outlets have to not be dirty, desperate, pitiful whores in exchange for this access?

Usually, we think of the pinnacle of access-whoring journalism to be something like movie junkets, where reporters are flown on fun trips to Hollywood and allowed to sit in the same room as a movie star for 15 minutes in exchange for a tacit agreement to only ask the most flattering softball questions. But there is access-whore journalism on all the beats: sports reporters who are too buddy-buddy in the locker room, fashion reporters who gush praise after getting good seats to runway shows, and, yes, political reporters who... make videos like the one above, in exchange for presidential candidates playing along.

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has some of the most abhorrent political beliefs of any Republican candidate for president. He is strongly against gay rights, strongly against abortion rights, and strongly against gun control. He has shown a notable willingness to pander to the most extreme elements of his party in order to win votes. He has advocated abolishing the Supreme Court and arresting government workers who try to enforce regulations. The unlikely event of a Bobby Jindal presidency would be devastating to women, gay people, poor people, residents of foreign nations, and residents of the United States of America.

I am all for “having a little fun” with the process of campaign reporting, which is perhaps the most soul-crushing beat reporting gig in America. But the video above is not particularly fun. What this video represents is Buzzfeed—a news outlet that has declared as a matter of editorial policy that “there are not two sides” to several issues, including women’s rights and LGBT equality—happily participating in an effort to make Bobby Jindal appear lovable and relatable and fun and funny and just a fun guy who you, the Buzzfeed-reading millennial demographic, can relate to and hang out with and hey, maybe vote for, if you want!

This is image-laundering. It is not good comedy, and it is definitely not journalism. It is Buzzfeed tacitly agreeing to make a goofy, feel-good video about a revolting presidential candidate to help improve his image, in return for him agreeing to get down and do pushups next to Buzzfeed employees dressed in slogan-bearing t-shirts. It is not funny. If you just contemplate Bobby Jindal’s actual policy positions while watching it, it is truly painful. Buzzfeed seems to have whored itself out rather cheaply in this case.

Bobby Jindal, come fight us, we’ll make a video of it and put it on the internet, you whore.